Recent Opinion Articles

Monday, 26 July 2010

Crikey.com, Item 16

Separating politics and war

Jeff Sparrow (“Should politicians attend military funerals”, Crikey, 23 July, Item 4) seems to be catching up with arguments advanced by the Australia Defence Association for many years.

The ADA has long pointed out to both the previous and current governments that they were not explaining our mission in Afghanistan adequately and that public opinion was mainly moving against the war because of this failure. We have also long pointed out that much of this opinion tended to be not as informed of the situation in Afghanistan as our troops on the ground ― and that this growing contrast in knowledge and understanding posed a danger to both national unity, and to the morale and security of the troops so deployed because it irresponsibly encouraged the enemy.

We have also always strongly criticised the practice of politicians officiating at farewell and welcome home ceremonies for ADF contingents departing for or returning from overseas deployments. This is because our defence force is necessarily both an apolitical institution and one that defends all Australians equally. The officiating dignitary must therefore always be an apolitical figure.

On politicians attending military funerals the dilemmas involved are more nuanced. Modern Australian practice reflects changes in our society since the Vietnam War and its predecessors, and closely matches those undertaken in Canada, New Zealand and virtually all the Western European contributors to the war in Afghanistan.

If the grieving family have no objection (and their permission is always sought), we believe that the relevant ministers and their shadows should attend or be represented ― as long as they avoid political capital being made from the attendance and the official mourner representing the Australian people is the Governor-General or some other politically neutral figure.

On balance, our political and bureaucratic classes need to attend such funerals in order to confront the bereaved family personally and to grasp more fully the real impact of their decision to commit our defence force to combat operations.

With the funeral of Private Nathan Bewes the ADA respects the decision by both political parties to desist from electoral campaigning that day. It is worth noting, however, that one of the overarching reasons why Nathan and our other casualties risked their lives, and died, is to preserve our freedom ― including the right to argue freely and then vote in national elections.

17 June 2010

Crikey.com

Item 14 (published under the unsuitable heading "Ill-informed pollies and journalists undermine our war efforts")

18 June 2010

The Canberra Times

p.23 (a slightly shorter version published under the heading "Battlefield knowledge lost to Parliament – and the public")

Deciding causes worth winning and dying for?

Reactions to the recent combat deaths of two Australian Diggers in Afghanistan again demonstrate serious problems in how we decide to initiate, fight and end our wars.

Complex strategic problems such as warfighting require complex solutions forged in sustained and informed debate. But instead we mainly have spasmodic, generally ill-informed and at times even defeatist interchanges, most notably at the fortunately few times when our Diggers are killed defending us.

Emotional moments are not conducive to informed public debate about anything. Nor indeed is it appropriate to argue about our wars, especially insensitively or simplistically, while the families and friends of our fallen Diggers are initially grieving their loss.

The underlying problem is that Australian society and our political mechanisms have now largely forgotten how to wage war and debate the options and consequences involved responsibly.

Most Australians think about defence matters only on Anzac Day and only in an historical or commemorative sense, rather than drawing contemporary or future strategic lessons.

Most mainstream media coverage of defence matters is by generalist reporters, political columnists and academics rather than by specialised and qualified journalists (as occurs, for example, in economics, business and science matters). Consequently the quality generally hovers between poor and appalling, although some coverage by Australian foreign correspondents in the Middle East and Afghanistan is very good. In Afghanistan we are fighting our first war since 1940 without an in-country ABC bureau. More generally, no Australian media organ now deploys war correspondents, especially ones able to stay in the country concerned or accompany our troops long enough to understand complex situations properly.

Australia’s modern wars are also fought by a small, voluntarily recruited, professional military, not by the large, mass-volunteer and conscripted forces that still resonate in national folk memory each Anzac Day. Unlike even Vietnam, where conscription (if not usually war) involved the families of around one in 40 male 20-year olds, only some 18,000 of Australia’s six million families now have an immediate family member serving in an overseas war zone each year.

The vast majority of Australians simply no longer have any personal experience of military service or war. Moreover, there is usually little or no second or third-hand experience even in extended families or broader communities. Common sense judgements about current wars from the parents and grandparents who fought or lived through previous wars are generally no longer available in most family, social and electoral discussions. Discussion about our wars on most blog sites and on talkback radio, for example, is more often than not beset by ignorance, ideology, prejudice and abuse.

Experience of war was also widespread in parliament and in Cabinet until the mid 1970s, but the last war-veteran Minister was Tim Fischer (1996-99). Out of 226 federal parliamentarians, Mike Kelly, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, is now the only war veteran (Somalia and Iraq) -- and the first one in the Defence portfolio since Lance Barnard in 1974. His opposition shadow, Stuart Robert, is the only one in parliament with peace-keeping experience (Bougainville).

Thirteen parliamentarians have at least peace-time military service, but 11 only as reservists, mostly for short periods, long ago, in very junior ranks. Joe Ludwig, the sole long-time reservist officer, is the only Cabinet minister. Bill Shorten, who served briefly in a university regiment, is the outer ministry’s only example.

Over the past decade our governments have often had to decide about using military force in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. While not doubting good intentions, how well do modern cabinet ministers and their political, bureaucratic and academic advisers really appreciate what going to war, and prosecuting war, really mean and need? And has partisan advantage always been subsumed to the real national interest appropriately -- and to any government’s responsibility not to endanger the men and women of the ADF unnecessarily?

As ill-informed public debate regularly shows -- and unlike our forebears who learned the hard way about deterring, fighting and winning wars -- most Australians across parliament, the bureaucracy, the media and the electorate seem to have forgotten 10 of war’s key lessons:

wars are nasty, difficult, rarely short and laced with unavoidable and sometimes irreconcilable moral and strategic quandaries;
wars are ultimately contests of will and end only when one side gives up;
well-led national unity is vital and our leaders need to fight with words as well as bullets by explaining why we fight, what is happening and what would happen if we lose;
all Australians are at war, not just the troops we send to fight, and we all have an enemy that none of us must help;
warfare is inherently dynamic and surprising, and we must all be resilient to its ups and downs;
combat means casualties;
unless we fight to win it is not morally or operationally sustainable to risk the lives of our Diggers in the first place;
our cause must be one worth fighting and dying for at Digger level;
the best force protection measures are adequately sized and resourced forces with commanders being allowed to command; and
when the troops on the ground have a markedly better understanding of the situation than the public back home we have a serious problem.

Furthermore, in a globalised world our web-literate enemies now readily monitor our domestic arguments and spread misinformation and propaganda to undermine our national will directly. Any opining that a war might be "unwinnable" or "wrong" therefore needs to be done responsibly and objectively, not in reckless ignorance or ideological indifference to the safety of our troops and Australia’s national interests. Much Australian media coverage of our wars lacks such senses of perspective or responsibility.

Finally, limiting our real war aim in Afghanistan to supposed "alliance maintenance" is not a winning strategy in any sense and is not a cause worth dying for.

Especially when our over-burdened US ally is increasingly exasperated by such buck-passing anyway, it does not reassure the Afghans we are helping, it perpetuates a risky combat status quo for our troops on the ground, and is suggested by theorists and politicians never called on to do the dying.

01 June 2010

The Canberra Times

p.11

Solving refugee issues by taking a strategic rather than an emotional approach

Our national dilemma with asylum-seeking and illegal immigration strategically, and our public debate domestically, are much affected by factors which Australia shares with very few countries. This is why our public debate on refugee policy tends to dwell emotionally on the symptoms of the dilemma rather than its actual strategic, legal and moral causes.

Our international law responsibilities (such as the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol) mean we cannot just make all unauthorised entry to Australia illegal. But conversely, Australian law must be able to differentiate between genuine asylum seekers arriving in an unauthorised manner by boat or jetliner, which is not in itself necessarily illegal, and anyone else who arrives by such means (including bogus asylum seekers and unauthorised immigrants of all varieties).

Australia is a much nicer place to live than most other countries, particularly in our near and wider region, and remains one of the four first-world countries with a mass immigration program. We also have a long and impressive history of permanently resettling immigrants and refugees in large per capita and absolute numbers. Both aspects are underwritten by a wide and longstanding national consensus socially.

They are also based on an internationally rare political and legal culture that believes Australian nationality and citizenship are not synonymous with any one particular race, ethnicity or religion but are instead based on shared values and loyalties.

But there are also now large numbers of overseas-born Australians, and their descendants, who naturally seek to lobby our government to admit their kith and kin as immigrants or refugees - or who otherwise try to get them into Australia by any means. A growing risk here is that these imperatives do not always pay due regard to the overall national interest ― or indeed due adherence to Australian law and the long-term democratic sensitivities and balances of our political system.

All these “pull factors” markedly affect the culture, politics and emotion of our public debate, often detrimentally. This especially concerns the mistaken or wilfully evasive assumption that offering asylum must always involve granting permanent residence and then citizenship.

This is not and never has been the intention of the Convention. In fact it undermines the Convention’s international acceptance by deterring most countries from ever becoming signatories. It also tends to encourage scepticism domestically about various groups of asylum claimants.

This is why our previous system of Temporary Protection Visas, while it had some negative (and preventable) outcomes due to flawed implementation, was very much in accord with the principles, intentions and moral integrity of the Convention.

But the most important factor complicating Australia’s position is the real “push” one that most countries, especially in our near and wider regions, have not acceded to the Convention. The incidence of war or civil strife is not a “push factor” per se but a symptom of the Convention not being truly universal, especially over much of the world where the wars that ceaselessly cause refugees occur.

As well as encouraging domestic disharmony about immigration as a whole – and asylum policy in particular – by leading to actual or perceived rorting of entry processes, the asylum-must-be-permanent fallacy also undermines the overall strategic intention of the Convention internationally.

A core intention of the Convention, as with Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, is to encourage permanent solutions to conflicts on a regional basis. Neighbouring countries are meant to solve the causes of refugee crises in the first place so refugees can quickly, safely and easily return to their homes to rebuild broken societies and polities. Tragically, the rejection of the Convention by so many countries has meant constant wars, much never-ending destruction of civil society in afflicted countries more widely, the misery of permanent refugee camps across much of the world, and the endemic strategic instability, misery and moral hypocrisy of near-permanent, extra-regional, refugee flows.

In terms of Australia’s strategic and moral setting, of the 35 or so countries between the Aegean and Arafura Seas (in the Middle East, West Asia, South Asia and South-East Asia) there are only seven signatories to the Convention (and Turkey rejected its extension outside Europe in the 1967 Protocol). With the partial exception of Israel, the other five remaining (Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, East Timor and Cambodia) are effectively pseudo-signatories who have records of causing refugee flows rather than providing sanctuary.

Few other countries in the Asia-Pacific are signatories and much fewer (New Zealand and to an extent PNG) have records of taking their responsibilities seriously in action.

Apparently nominal signatories in our wider region include Japan, South Korea, Philippines, China, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tuvalu. China, in particular, is better known as a source of refugees rather than a sanctuary. The same could be said about Fiji and Solomon Islands at times. All four South Pacific signatories have rarely been called upon to offer asylum and this is likely to continue.

Even more to the point, Australia’s geographic setting, and to varying extents our first-world economic and socio-political status, tend to place us in the regional frontline for permanent asylum claims from West Asia, South Asia and the Middle East in particular.

Australian public debate on refugee policy largely ignores this geo-strategic setting. Consequently it often only involves either beating or puffing ourselves up morally and emotionally over our national willingness or not to accept refugees (either some or all). Alternatively, public debate descends into the advocacy of simplistic and draconian pseudo-solutions, such as trying to deter or punish every refugee or unauthorised immigrant who might come here or alternatively accepting everyone and anyone on an unlimited basis.

Both types of behaviour are arguing about symptoms rather than addressing the causes and finding solutions. Moreover, our refugee policy and our associated expectations of other countries are but two of many aspects in our overall strategic relationship with our regional neighbours.

Refugee matters must not be allowed to become a defining or persistent problem in such complex strategic relationships. We must also avoid the potential for regional neighbours to pressure us strategically through facilitating extra-regional refugee flows into Australia or not, or in threatening to do so.

Over the medium to long term there will be no effective solution, and increasing strategic risks, for Australia until more countries sign the Convention. Particularly in our near and wider region.

India, Singapore and Indonesia, for example, would be a good start both morally and strategically. No opportunity should be lost in pointing out this apparent hypocrisy and strategic and moral buck-passing to any Indian, Singaporean or Indonesian you meet.

Start next on any Australian or diplomatic apologists advancing red herrings about it somehow being all too hard for these countries. Or those claiming that declared universal responsibilities in refugee matters only apply to Australia and other first-world countries in practice, despite a good take-up of the Convention in South America, the Caribbean and much of Africa and Central Asia.

The nub of our enduring problem strategically is that while current numbers of genuine refugees entering Australia appear manageable, this manageability and the potential instability of our domestic unity are inversely proportional to both future numbers, any lessening time period involved, and to any degree of foreign strategic pressure on this and wider grounds.

We also need a consistent and strategically viable policy on refugees rather than one that depends almost entirely on the current low numbers for its legitimacy, effectiveness, popular support, international acceptability or purported long-term viability.

Hard as it may be politically, socially and morally, tough issues and options need to be addressed. Unless or until the Refugee Convention becomes truly universal legally, morally and in the effect intended – and countries in every region finally look after their own as the Convention intends – it is foreseeable (if not yet likely) that one day Australia might have to threaten to or withdraw from the Convention until it becomes truly universal and effective.

We need to think coolly about such dilemmas and potential solutions now, not when a crisis hits, public emotions run high either way and party-political policy auctions risk being swayed accordingly.

There are serious problems with the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol which extended its potential application geographically to the whole world but without much take-up in our region. The current situation regarding the Convention is one where the moral buck-passing involved and the strategic instability it causes internationally seem to be worsening.

Unless we think this through as a long-term strategic as well as a day-to-day political and moral problem, the necessary public consensus underlying our mass immigration and refugee policies will weaken seriously and perhaps fatally. Perhaps even to the extent that it results in more pervasive and serious breakdowns in our national unity, leading in turn to major political dissension, disintegrating social cohesion and other national security risks.

22 March 2010

The Canberra Times

p.15

Allow law to take its course in determining truth of night raid

In mid February 2009 a night raid in Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of six Afghan civilians, four of them small children, at the hands of the ADF. Two more children and two adults from this family group were wounded.

By definition the incident occurred in a war zone and in territory that is disputed across the physical, military, political and human senses. It also happened in circumstances where formal Afghan legal mechanisms were and remain inoperable ― and clash anyway with long-established cultural and religious mores that contradict Afghanistan’s laws and indeed nominal government structures.

Determining truth in such circumstances is difficult. Accurately apportioning responsibility or blame is even harder. Both must be done, however, in order for Australia to comply with international humanitarian law, to reassure Afghans that there is a moral difference between the ADF and the Taliban, and to preserve the integrity of the ADF as the professional defence force of a liberal democracy ruled by law.

Operational limitations on the ground, including security concerns, respect for bereaved victims and wider cultural sensitivities affected both the initial operational investigation and the subsequent criminal investigation it recommended. Neither investigation was able to visit the scene of the deaths or interview the survivors and any witnesses at first hand in the same way we would in downtown Australia. Indeed the SBS documentary team covering the incident later ran into many of the same limitations.

Discovering the discerning truth must also account for the background context. In the final analysis any war is a contest of will and ends when one side gives up. This means in both the Afghan and international arenas the wider public information and propaganda clashes can never be entirely separated from the shooting on the ground.

In this particular incident, and with the Taliban insurgency seeking to win popular support generally, the Taliban have naturally sought to portray what happened so as to boost their cause and undermine ours. Moreover, because of justifiable anger, genuine allegiance, Taliban intimidation or a combination, the objectivity of in-situ evidence from the villagers involved may be problematic in a legal sense. As the generally balanced SBS Dateline documentary showed, this is not an insurmountable problem as long as it is recognised. In this case many of the known facts do not need much embellishment by the Taliban anyway.

The ADF operates in Afghanistan within a legal framework of Australian, Afghan and international law (and in accordance with appropriate constitutional and professional mechanisms). The overall legal basis of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan stems from the UN Charter in general and several UN Security Council Resolutions in particular.

The conduct of our military assistance is governed by that specialist branch of international humanitarian law known as the laws of armed conflict, chiefly based on the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The Taliban on the other hand do not respect these laws and regard our adherence as a vulnerability to be (illegally) exploited. They have no process for investigating breaches of these laws. Indeed they reward not punish acts such as the indiscriminate targeting of non-combatants.

Under the umbrella of the laws of armed conflict our troops are subject to rules of engagement governing the overall application of armed force to the particular circumstances of the Afghanistan War. There are also International Security Assistance Force commander’s directives applying to all troops in the alliance on matters such as night raids on Afghan compounds. On the ground, the rules of engagement are further broken down into orders-for-opening-fire which tell each digger when they can and cannot use lethal force.

Interpreting these rules and orders in the hectic chaos of battle can be tough, certainly much tougher than subsequently in peaceful court rooms. Accidents of all kinds also happen frequently in the confusion of war. But deliberate killing contrary to these rules and orders is generally and necessarily illegal because the alternative is the barbarism of our Taliban enemy. Accidental killing can also be illegal if resulting from actions that could be reasonably foreseen, or from professionally reckless or negligent use of force by those commanding, planning or doing the fighting.

No-one is disputing that something went dreadfully wrong in this incident. The operational procedure flaws have already been fixed. But nothing more should be allowed to go wrong in finding out how, why and who might be at fault.

All Australians should be reassured that there have been no cover-ups, nor delays beyond those dictated by the operational situation in Afghanistan and the time needed for due legal process. We should also be encouraged that our national war-fighting systems are so self-correcting. Unlike the Taliban we have professional and legal accountability processes than can objectively investigate battlefield mistakes.

The professional debate within the ADF about possible underlying causes of the incident is also a necessary and professionally healthy phenomenon. It shows there is no institutional culture of deceit, groupthink or resistance to appropriate and transparent supervision of the ADF’s use of armed force.

Criticism of the ADF for the time taken in investigation, or its care not to prejudice due legal process by public comment, is uninformed, unfair and invalid. We should let the law take its course. Only the statutorily independent Director of Military Prosecutions can properly decide whether any ADF personnel should face criminal or disciplinary charges.

02 March 2010

Toowoomba Chronicle

p.19 (published under the heading "National interest dictates Borneo Barracks' future")

Facing Cabarlah’s future beyond Borneo Barracks

Borneo Barracks, Cabarlah, began as a World War I training area. A militia battalion of the 7^th Brigade was based there in 1940-41 and the senior wing of the Army Staff School was located there in 1942-45. The 7^th Signal Regiment has been located at Borneo Barracks in various guises since 1946. With the exception of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, this is by far the longest continuous unit occupation of the same barracks in the entire regular army.

For many years this relatively isolated location suited the specialist operational nature of the regiment’s work and the high degree of security and subterfuge then involved. The high frequency-based communications technology of that era, and the relative electronic solitude of the area, also suited a base on the Darling Downs.

None of these strategic priorities, operational requirements and technical conditions still apply. The longer-term future of the base has consequently come up for regular discussion over recent decades.

The financial costs of maintaining what is effectively a more expensive single-unit base also increasingly need to be balanced against the option of relocating the regiment to a larger, multi-user, base where support facilities can be shared and numerous recurring efficiencies gained.

Local discussions about the future of Borneo Barracks, on the other hand, seem to be caught in a recurring time warp where nothing ever changes.

They also often appear largely based on some fundamental misunderstandings about why Australia has a defence force in the first place. While there is naturally community reluctance to even contemplate that the barracks may one day be closed, various strategic, operational and budgetary realities affecting our defence force mean that such a closure is inevitable.

Local arguments to retain Borneo Barracks in seeming perpetuity naturally revolve around local issues. These include the perceived necessity of the commercial, rental, social and school and childcare enrolment inputs the barracks brings to the community of the greater Toowoomba area. Given the long-term residential stability of the unit, the sale of a large number of privately-owned houses and Defence-owned married quarters might also temporarily depress the local housing market.

The total annual economic loss is often cited as $105m. But this figure ignores the gains from future development of the barracks site for other uses such as housing, an educational institution or the conference industry. It is probable that any future use would keep the golf course (built by years of unit and member volunteer labour) as a draw-card asset ― especially as the course has been self-supporting for decades.

The local focus of objections to the base closing is understandable. The central weakness of the associated arguments is that they ignore the primary purpose of our defence force. This is to protect Australia as a whole by maximising the ADF’s capacity to deter and if necessary win wars. Maximising the return to all Australian taxpayers from the defence budget is also important.

The job of the Department of Defence is defence not regional development. The economic advantages of ADF bases to local communities are and must remain a side benefit not the main game.

The overall national interest must always be the priority when making decisions about where our defence force needs to be based. Consequently, the long-term strategic dispositions of our defence force, especially where each and every unit should be located, must be decided on the basis of overall national priorities.

These chiefly include each unit’s strategic and operational capabilities and the overall long-term cost of the ADF to the national taxpayer. From time to time such priorities change as national strategic requirements are re-prioritised, the force structure of the ADF is remodelled or technological developments occur.

In the 1990s for example, we saw the Army’s 1^st Brigade move from Sydney to Darwin because of defence strategy reviews, the need for access to nearby and much larger training areas for armoured and mechanised forces, the high cost of housing defence force families in the Sydney area and the lengthy commuting times often involved.

Cabarlah may at first glance meet most of the ADF basing criteria discussed in the 2009 Defence White Paper. It is also a popular base among ADF personnel and their families.

But the overall economic argument pushing base rationalisation nationwide is that the ADF needs to be more concentrated in a smaller number of larger and better sited bases. Existing single-unit bases such as Cabarlah, and Woodside in the Adelaide Hills, are likely to be a high priority for closure because of the confluence of financial, operational and strategic efficiencies to be gained.

In the case of the 7th Signals Regiment, these significant strategic and operational efficiencies include the option of collocating it with other electronic warfare units at the new superbase at RAAF Edinburgh near Adelaide.

The initial cost of relocating a unit from a single-unit base is not small but this is soon recouped by the long-term savings from relocation to a multi-user base, and the through-life cost of new facilities compared with ever-increasing maintenance costs on much older ones. The crunch time will be when Cabarlah’s older buildings and facilities require significant upgrades, particularly over the next decade or so. The high cost of this is likely to force a decision that the money would be better invested in new buildings and facilities in a multi-unit base with a long-term and operationally viable future.

The biggest obstacle to ADF base rationalisation is generally the local federal member of parliament, followed by the local council and the chamber of commerce. This is their right and indeed their duty.

Being located in a marginal electorate has also often delayed base rationalisation. Being located in a safely Opposition-held one can speed things up.

But keeping any base open for no reason other than local economic or political advantage is really asking the taxpayers in the rest of the country to disproportionally subsidise the community concerned. This is not fair, viable or responsible in the long run from a whole-nation viewpoint.

In the particular case of the Darling Downs, which also has the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey, there are really no grounds other than temporary local priorities to delay or stop the eventual closure of Cabarlah.

Surely it is now better to concentrate on the future of the Cabarlah site when it is no longer Borneo Barracks.

Neil James is executive director of the Australia Defence Association (www.ada.asn.au). He thoroughly enjoyed his posting to Cabarlah from late 1979 to mid 1982.